Stay in cover or run?

[Lantirn]

Want your opinions.

 

At the start of the game the Iowa which was exactly on my left decides to leave the flank and he is going to A for whatever reason, so I decide to support and stay on my flank but cautiously.

Later on our DDs spot their DDs on C, and ostergotland goes through the gap east. Donskoi spots him and we shoot.

While shooting at this ostergotland, on the north Agir and Izumo appeared on D10. Donskoi is leaving the area. At this point I started reversing while I shoot some HE on them.

Now, should I aim to get in cover in the island on my right while trying to make some damage on these ships later on? Or just wait to regain my stealth do a 180 while shooting defensively.

 

 

I did the latter and later on these 2 ships came south and Izumo died because Donskoi (which eventually arrived at B) burned him, while I got a nice citadel hit on this Agir on my second push which eventually died also.

Some frames from the sequence and outcome.

 

 

 

Now I am making this question because I find myself many times being defensively overextending. I try not to be in full throttle but I think that most of the time I run while firing instead of hide and wait. Georgia can help to disengage quickly, but you can be found in orbit in no time.

 

In this game my score was low but it happens many times. Usually I score around 50000-70000, but I have done games with 200000. I try to get the correct angles  either by flanking or by choosing to change my position because most of my team is on the same side with me, literally being impossible to make a good firing angle.

 

Also I think that a good team affects my performance. I am not a consistent player but I find that with a good team I always perform better. Thats not good obviously.

 

Thanks for the help.

[GarrusBrutus]

Why play so cautious when youre one of the fastest bbs and youre full hp? You can use the islands to break line of sight while doing a turn, or to break line of sight with an enemy to prevent a 2 on 1 situation. 

 

But overall, 11k dmg and 300k potential damage after 10 mins.... Yikes man. Waaaaaaay too passive. 

[Hirohito]

10 minutes ago, Lantirn said:

 

Now I am making this question because I find myself many times being defensively overextending. I try not to be in full throttle but I think that most of the time I run while firing instead of hide and wait. Georgia can help to disengage quickly, but you can be found in orbit in no time.

 

That very much depends on individual circumstances.
If you are at 90% hp and you are slightly outnumbered, but your team is taking heavy fire - absolutely keep firing while carefully retreating.
You need to draw fire away and pressure the enemy then.
If you are at 20-30% (perhaps with heal and DCP on cooldown), you might consider going dark to disengage and heal up.
If your teammates are about to potato and die in the next instance, you might want to keep firing until they are dead and go dark at that point, but either way when you are outnumbered on a flank you should start getting into a defensive position so that you have the option to either kite or go dark depending on circumstances.

Generally you want to have better trades than the enemy team, and survive for as long as possible, but trading away some of your hp to let others live is important as well.
 

[nambr9]

like @GarrusBrutus said. From the screens you played way too passive.

Almost full HP and only one heal used.

 

People think you either YOLO or run away.

The key is to create a bottleneck with your BB.

[Hades_warrior]

Problem with this game is that lately too many ''players'' are camping far behind no matter what class they play. They will think of it as ''tactic''.

[DFens_666]

If you are running a secondary build, you should be grateful when they push into you. So you can use your secondaries while kiting away even. Neither of them has high DPM, Izumo needs your broadside to get crippling damage, and so does Ägir to get somewhat decent damage. Ägir shooting HE should not pose a huge threat (unless he gets REALLY lucky with fires over several volleys...).

 

How come you never hit the Izumo

[Perekotypole]

In a fast ship like Georgia you should stay on a flank even alone, just not nose in. Your speed let's you disengage any time, and you can slow down enemies on that flank. Even CVs have hard time harassing lone Georgia.

[Srle_Vigilante]

NIGERUNDAYO SMOKEY [JoJo`s Bizarre Adventure] - YouTube

[rimmer_the]

1 hour ago, Lantirn said:

Want your opinions.

 

At the start of the game the Iowa which was exactly on my left decides to leave the flank and he is going to A for whatever reason, so I decide to support and stay on my flank but cautiously.

Later on our DDs spot their DDs on C, and ostergotland goes through the gap east. Donskoi spots him and we shoot.

While shooting at this ostergotland, on the north Agir and Izumo appeared on D10. Donskoi is leaving the area. At this point I started reversing while I shoot some HE on them.

Now, should I aim to get in cover in the island on my right while trying to make some damage on these ships later on? Or just wait to regain my stealth do a 180 while shooting defensively.

 

 

I did the latter and later on these 2 ships came south and Izumo died because Donskoi (which eventually arrived at B) burned him, while I got a nice citadel hit on this Agir on my second push which eventually died also.

Some frames from the sequence and outcome.

 

 

 

Now I am making this question because I find myself many times being defensively overextending. I try not to be in full throttle but I think that most of the time I run while firing instead of hide and wait. Georgia can help to disengage quickly, but you can be found in orbit in no time.

 

In this game my score was low but it happens many times. Usually I score around 50000-70000, but I have done games with 200000. I try to get the correct angles  either by flanking or by choosing to change my position because most of my team is on the same side with me, literally being impossible to make a good firing angle.

 

Also I think that a good team affects my performance. I am not a consistent player but I find that with a good team I always perform better. Thats not good obviously.

 

Thanks for the help.

Compliments on asking such a clear question. You don't see this often, with screenshots included to boot. Very rare to see this. It depends, but when you are top tier, and its a steamroll, you can take way more "risk", stay in the open, and attack. 

[_DeathWing_]

You need a third option here which is fight. And you're clearly not doing it effectively but the other two you do, effectively. Ironic 

[Procrastes]

Judging when to push and when to retreat is one of the hardest things to learn, when playing a battleship. It goes without saying that it is also one of the main keys to victory.

 

I'm still not nearly good enough as a battleship player to give reliable advice on how to handle them. But with that disclaimer out of the way, I will say this: An active playstyle is always better than a passive playstyle, and a thousand times more fun. So when in doubt, try to push in and make a difference! 

[rnat]

I'm just gonna be the bad guy here and point out something else: Do not buy high tier premiums if you have no related experience in the game.
The Mass and Georgia are literally only BBs you're played at time of writing and you're doing poorly in them (as would be expected). Sub 60k average damage is pretty bad in a high tier BB.

(Yes, I did look at your stats to check your average damage claim which was relatively accurate btw and put it into context)

So my main advice would be to restrict those ships to co-op until you've at least gotten your first T8 tech-tree BB from going through the line (no free-exp shenanigans).

You can't really expect to grasp a class on a level to go against high-tier opponents when you have very little experience in it.

 

[Lantirn]

1 hour ago, GarrusBrutus said:

But overall, 11k dmg and 300k potential damage after 10 mins.... Yikes man. Waaaaaaay too passive. 

 

Well I suppose you cant just yolo with 2 DDs in front in the beginning. The question was for the izumo and agir, but your comment about 1vs1 is a good solution, at least momentarily.

 

1 hour ago, Hirohito said:

Generally you want to have better trades than the enemy team, and survive for as long as possible, but trading away some of your hp to let others live is important as well.

 

Its all about balance I assume!

 

1 hour ago, nambr9 said:

like @GarrusBrutus said. From the screens you played way too passive.

Almost full HP and only one heal used.

 

How would you position yourself here when you see Izumo and Agir?

 

1 hour ago, Hades_warrior said:

Problem with this game is that lately too many ''players'' are camping far behind no matter what class they play. They will think of it as ''tactic''.

 

You dont help at all with your comment. II have seen even Flamu going live and been literally alone in the edge of the map doing his best. But I dont think that I was camping by the way.

 

1 hour ago, DFens_666 said:

If you are running a secondary build, you should be grateful when they push into you. So you can use your secondaries while kiting away even. Neither of them has high DPM, Izumo needs your broadside to get crippling damage, and so does Ägir to get somewhat decent damage. Ägir shooting HE should not pose a huge threat (unless he gets REALLY lucky with fires over several volleys...).

 

How come you never hit the Izumo

 

Actually its not a full secondary now, but I am trying things on her alot. I never hit izumo because of active maneuvering and the aft turret has only 2 guns :)

 

1 hour ago, Perekotypole said:

In a fast ship like Georgia you should stay on a flank even alone, just not nose in. Your speed let's you disengage any time, and you can slow down enemies on that flank. Even CVs have hard time harassing lone Georgia.

 

Good hint about the nose positioning!

 

32 minutes ago, rimmer_the said:

Compliments on asking such a clear question. You don't see this often, with screenshots included to boot. Very rare to see this. It depends, but when you are top tier, and its a steamroll, you can take way more "risk", stay in the open, and attack. 

 

Thanks alot, I was questioning myself when this happened and after the battle although a victory, I checked the replay and wanted to ask someone maybe with more experience. 

 

34 minutes ago, _DeathWing_ said:

You need a third option here which is fight. And you're clearly not doing it effectively but the other two you do, effectively. Ironic 

 

Can you be more specific and tell me how you would position yourself here?

 

25 minutes ago, Procrastes said:

Judging when to push and when to retreat is one of the hardest things to learn, when playing a battleship. It goes without saying that it is also one of the main keys to victory.

 

I'm still not nearly good enough as a battleship player to give reliable advice on how to handle them. But with that disclaimer out of the way, I will say this: An active playstyle is always better than a passive playstyle, and a thousand times more fun. So when in doubt, try to push in and make a difference! 

 

I have realized this but there are times that I have crossed the line and DDs could torp me in mid game or I think that I can handle a scenario where suddenly I just die soon :)

 

25 minutes ago, rnat said:

I'm just gonna be the bad guy here and point out something else: Do not buy high tier premiums if you have no related experience in the game.
The Mass and Georgia are literally only BBs you're played at time of writing and you're doing poorly in them (as would be expected). Sub 60k average damage is pretty bad in a high tier BB.

(Yes, I did look at your stats to check your average damage claim which was relatively accurate btw and put it into context)

So my main advice would be to restrict those ships to co-op until you've at least gotten your first T8 tech-tree BB from going through the line (no free-exp shenanigans).

You can't really expect to grasp a class on a level to go against high-tier opponents when you have very little experience in it.

 

Fully understood and no you are not the bad guy. I would say the same thing if I was in your position but in hindsight. 

But I doubt that just by grinding a BB tech tree will give me the experience to challenge high tier players.

Keep in mind that lower tiers doesn't mean always newer players on the matchmaking and easier gameplay. Many experienced players enjoy mid tiers e.g. to avoid radars.

Yes, you find more experienced players in high tiers and the experience ceiling that you can encounter is on the roof. 

IMHO its the game like this, you cant avoid to get melted for some time until you learn by doing.

 

Experience comes with mistakes and by making them in the high risk environment. 

Co-op also doesnt help at all. Its just a crap of stupid bots pushing in, on a way that you rarely, if ever see on randoms. 

 

[Karasu_Hidesuke]

2 hours ago, Hades_warrior said:

Problem with this game is that lately too many ''players'' are camping far behind no matter what class they play. They will think of it as ''tactic''.

 

I don't actually blame them, because many times what happens is I run into a surprise meeting with enemy ships that have somehow avoided detection till that point, the point being past the point of no return for myself. I don't always mind committing myself to situations where the enemy outnumbers me (and my flank), but I prefer to make that call myself rather than being forced into it.

[Hades_warrior]

27 minutes ago, Lantirn said:

You dont help at all with your comment. II have seen even Flamu going live and been literally alone in the edge of the map doing his best. But I dont think that I was camping by the way.

 

I wasn't talking about you but in general...

 

7 minutes ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

 

I don't actually blame them, because many times what happens is I run into a surprise meeting with enemy ships that have somehow avoided detection till that point, the point being past the point of no return for myself. I don't always mind committing myself to situations where the enemy outnumbers me (and my flank), but I prefer to make that call myself rather than being forced into it.

The problem here is that this scenario ends up in steamrolls. Because one team is camping and is either afraid of playing objectives or just... too dumb and wanna be glue eater, so the other team have team of pushers and of course they win easier without enemy team resistance given.

I hate camping because that is not how this game is suppose to be played. And no one can win by camping because that is ignoring objectives. 

And im tired of this game and ''teams'' like that.

[rimmer_the]

34 minutes ago, Lantirn said:

 

Well I suppose you cant just yolo with 2 DDs in front in the beginning. The question was for the izumo and agir, but your comment about 1vs1 is a good solution, at least momentarily.

 

 

Its all about balance I assume!

 

 

How would you position yourself here when you see Izumo and Agir?

 

 

You dont help at all with your comment. II have seen even Flamu going live and been literally alone in the edge of the map doing his best. But I dont think that I was camping by the way.

 

 

Actually its not a full secondary now, but I am trying things on her alot. I never hit izumo because of active maneuvering and the aft turret has only 2 guns :)

 

 

Good hint about the nose positioning!

 

 

Thanks alot, I was questioning myself when this happened and after the battle although a victory, I checked the replay and wanted to ask someone maybe with more experience. 

 

 

Can you be more specific and tell me how you would position yourself here?

 

 

I have realized this but there are times that I have crossed the line and DDs could torp me in mid game or I think that I can handle a scenario where suddenly I just die soon :)

 

 

Fully understood and no you are not the bad guy. I would say the same thing if I was in your position but in hindsight. 

But I doubt that just by grinding a BB tech tree will give me the experience to challenge high tier players.

Keep in mind that lower tiers doesn't mean always newer players on the matchmaking and easier gameplay. Many experienced players enjoy mid tiers e.g. to avoid radars.

Yes, you find more experienced players in high tiers and the experience ceiling that you can encounter is on the roof. 

IMHO its the game like this, you cant avoid to get melted for some time until you learn by doing.

 

Experience comes with mistakes and by making them in the high risk environment. 

Co-op also doesnt help at all. Its just a crap of stupid bots pushing in, on a way that you rarely, if ever see on randoms. 

 

If you still have vestige doubts about charging in, maybe consider the RPF skill, or for extreme contrarians like me, Vigilance. 

[Karasu_Hidesuke]

1 minute ago, Hades_warrior said:

 

The problem here is that this scenario ends up in steamrolls. Because one team is camping and is either afraid of playing objectives or just... too dumb and wanna be glue eater, so the other team have team of pushers and of course they win easier without enemy team resistance given.

I hate camping because that is not how this game is suppose to be played. And no one can win by camping because that is ignoring objectives. 

And im tired of this game and ''teams'' like that.

 

Yeah, it might, and probably often does. When one team is passively camping, the other team pushes on both flanks meaning they get that cherished map control, and the camping team ends up a) losing the caps and b) having their options severly limited.

 

The key here is spotting and detection, as nearly always.

[Lantirn]

10 minutes ago, rimmer_the said:

If you still have vestige doubts about charging in, maybe consider the RPF skill. I assume you, like everyone, have taken the PriTar skill already to at least know if you are being targeted and by how many. 

Yes of course I am using PriTar
I don’t think that with a 19 point captain you can do this in a BB easily without compromising other skills, where RPF in a DD is a must! 

[Lantirn]

14 minutes ago, Hades_warrior said:

I wasn't talking about you but in general...

Sorry my bad 

[Ocsimano18]

In my opinion, you were already too far back in your first screenshot. Basically, as a BB you should be where your Donskoi is, and the Donskoi should be behind you.

I'd never move behind the island to camp/shoot. As the Donskoi were moving away, and your DDs were playing, correctly, around the cap, there is no reason to push against a DD and two enemy ships alone. On the other hand, you were moving further away from the cap, which is bad positioning. You should not be too close, to avoid the nasty torps from the two DDs, but in this case your DDs were screening the torps, so you'd have ample reaction time to avoid them, even if being much more closer. Supporting your DDs, i.e. firing HE at the red DDs approaching the cap would have been a much better option than doing 11k damage, which is, as other have already commented, is nothing to write home about.

[Lantirn]

7 minutes ago, Ocsimano18 said:

In my opinion, you were already too far back in your first screenshot. Basically, as a BB you should be where your Donskoi is, and the Donskoi should be behind you.

I'd never move behind the island to camp/shoot. As the Donskoi were moving away, and your DDs were playing, correctly, around the cap, there is no reason to push against a DD and two enemy ships alone. On the other hand, you were moving further away from the cap, which is bad positioning. You should not be too close, to avoid the nasty torps from the two DDs, but in this case your DDs were screening the torps, so you'd have ample reaction time to avoid them, even if being much more closer. Supporting your DDs, i.e. firing HE at the red DDs approaching the cap would have been a much better option than doing 11k damage, which is, as other have already commented, is nothing to write home about.

Very good point. At the beginning we were unaware about enemy ship positions until this first screenshot and to begin with when I saw the ostergotland going east I thought it would be a good idea to push from there with the donskoi. I should have guessed maybe...But then the other 2 ships were coming! 
 

But yes, it was bad positioning. 

[Hirohito]

54 minutes ago, Lantirn said:

 

Its all about balance I assume!

 

Yes, and this is is what can often be tricky.
New players often want advice of the type "if situation X happens, I should do response Y", and this is a good starting point.
But after a while you learn that this is only a general guideline, and that you often have to decide all the time based on circumstances.

When going for a flank in a BB for instance, you should generally assess how many ships there are on that flank as opposed to your flank, and judge whether or not any ships could be hidden.

Its nice to use the minimap with "last known position" enabled to see where enemy ships are/have been headed, so that you can count through the enemy lineup and see if any ships are unaccounted for.
If you judge that its a 3 v 5 (3 on your side, 5 on theirs, and possibly a few more coming your way since you don't know where they are), be prepared to kite and preferably turn your ship around before you get detected (you can often let your detection circle almost overlap with the edge of the cap as long as you see no enemy DD flipping it).
At that point, you generally want to slowly kite away (not fleeing outright, that only gives them the cap for free), but also looking for opportunities to do damage while kiting.
And as stated, you also need to pay attention to your teammates on that flank - if they are about to blow up (yolo DD, cruiser turning broadside near the cap while spotted well in the open), you can assume that they are going to die.

In that case you often can get some shots in for "free" while they finish off your mates.
But if they are low on hp while well angled and kiting away, you need to trade some of your health away by pressuring the enemy ships with return fire and hopefully get them to shoot at you instead of your (near dead) teammates, and only go dark when needed if you are suddenly alone (or you are the one who is low, while your teammates are healthy).

Overall, the goal should be to not surrender a cap outright but let the enemy pay dearly for getting it, while ideally having all ships on your side survive (even if you have to go dark eventually).

Having 3 very wounded ships on your flank kiting away is infinitely better than having 2 dead ships and one guy surviving with 90% health (esp. a BB).
This takes some practice to react properly to, since circumstances like these can change quickly when on the defending flank.
Try to not get stuck in the mindset of "I need to always hide behind islands when I see this happening", or "I always need to flee", since that depends fully on what's happening on the flank at any given time.

[Hirohito]

1 hour ago, Karasu_Hidesuke said:

 

I don't actually blame them, because many times what happens is I run into a surprise meeting with enemy ships that have somehow avoided detection till that point, the point being past the point of no return for myself. I don't always mind committing myself to situations where the enemy outnumbers me (and my flank), but I prefer to make that call myself rather than being forced into it.

There is a fine line here though.
Generally you don't want to commit to anything unless you have some idea of what you are facing, and when ships are unaccounted for on the enemy side you need to keep that in mind and be careful.
There is no shame in "sharking around" a cap until you see what's up, and only then make the decision of whether to push, hold or kite/flee.
This not only goes for BBs, but DDs as well.
No need to rush into a cap headlong in a DD only to get caught with your pants down, lit by enemy radar and an enemy DD opening fire on you from 6 kms.
Heck, sometimes it can even be better to just let the enemy do those stupid plays and get the cap early, only to punish their overextension and recap at an opportune time later on.

Had a DD some days ago blaming the team in chat for "such a bad team, no support", while he rushed straight into C-cap on North, which is very risky since he had no clue on what was waiting for him, and he predictably ended up in last place, living barely for 2 or 3 minutes into the game.
Even though I was steaming ahead at full speed in my Massa to support him, he predictably died as he got jumped by radar and a gunboat.
I tried explaining to him that he did have some support, but that he can't throw his ship away mindlessly like that.
He of course pointed to the fact that "people in chat say you need to cap as a DD", and was generally not interested in being told that this is circumstantial - noone forces you to push early, and capping can always be done later on.
He ended up cursing at me, but I guess I just attribute that to a somewhat poor player who doesn't know what to do and gets frustrated when he failed following questionable chat advice.
Moral of the story - random 49% WR teammates saying that "DDs/BBs always need to push!!!!" is bad advice, and you will eventually learn to tell the situations to when it applies, and when it doesn't.
And if anything else fails, you can always ignore the chat outright and learn these things by yourself.

[SV_Kompresor]

Others already gave you a lot of useful advice, so I won't really bother with it, what I can tell you however is why you had such a bad experience. And there's 2 main reasons:

 

1. You skipped straight to tier 8 and tier 9, and joined a high tier match with no prior experience.

2. You picked a BB with one of the highest skill floors. Georgia is the strongest tier 9 BB I'd say, but it also requires correct angling due to its poor broadside citadel armor and good aim due to it being a very accurate ship with very few shells in a salvo. My guess is that you did neither properly because you weren't familiar with BB playstyles.

[Hirohito]

7 minutes ago, domen3 said:

1. You skipped straight to tier 8 and tier 9, and joined a high tier match with no prior experience.

2. You picked a BB with one of the highest skill floors. Georgia is the strongest tier 9 BB I'd say, but it also requires correct angling due to its poor broadside citadel armor and good aim due to it being a very accurate ship with very few shells in a salvo. My guess is that you did neither properly because you weren't familiar with BB playstyles.

Good pointers, but I think he shouldn't be discouraged to play the Georgia outright.
The reason being is that he is obviously not one of your average weekend potatoes who only wants to blow stuff up in a high tier BB, but actually comes to the forums with questions about how to improve.

As long as he has this mindset, having a fiery baptism with entering T9 can quickly give him a lot of valuable experience on which to improve.

I remember when I was new and people said I should "stick to T4 until you get above 55%" because I had a 44-46% WR or so at T6+, but I kept playing those tiers and was constantly trying to look at my errors and therefore I quickly improved.
If I had stuck to T4 I would most likely not have gained too much knowledge, since you can pick up some really bad habits at those tiers (and get away with them, thinking you're good), which in the long run makes it even more difficult to adapt to the higher tiers where you keep sticking to your faulty ways since they used to work before.